Cobus Loots, CEO of Pan African Resources, on delivering sector-leading returns for shareholders. Watch the video here.
Btw, we can do a bit of maths here. Octopus received £26.9m for their stake in Semafone, which I think was about 30-38% of the company. So, Semafone was acquired by Livingbridge for somewhere in the region of £70-90m. Mental when you consider PCIP is valued in the public markets at less than half of that.
Interesting, thanks for posting. Wonder why they haven't gone public with the second one. Clearly hoped going public would put customers off PCIP.
Can see why when their ARR is only growing 14%. And revenue growth in the US of only 10%. ARR of £16.4m; PCIP will overtake them soon, potentially within the next year.
Very interesting. Sycurio has appointed a new CFO as of today.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sycurio_pcidss-teamwork-growth-activity-6978270369916841984-ru-9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Turnover in the C-suite continues. Seems like a CFO whose aim will be to package the business up for a sale.
And they've just hired new counsel
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sycurio_growth-opportunities-teamwork-activity-6972910595591311360-tf5G?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
Yes, the other interesting point is that they expect total remaining costs of the litigation to be £2.9m vs. the net cash position of £4.9m. And they believe they will achieve cashflow breakeven this year. I was unclear if this is cashflow breakeven for the full-year or on a monthly basis towards the end. The wording implies the former, which would be fantastic, but would be surprising to me!
Very interesting, thanks Victor.
It seems to me that both parties are currently posturing to determine who has the upper hand in negotiations around the settlement.
Neither of these companies have unlimited resources to pursue a full US lawsuit. It certainly doesn't seem like an open and shut case for Sycurio given all the new patents PCI-Pal is winning.
The Eckoh case of settling within 24 months of the start date seems most likely and that both sides are playing for relative bargaining position.
I was also going through Eckoh's latest results presentation. Pretty uninspiring.
Their main sales partners in the UK are Capita, Teleperformance and BT. Well, we know Teleperformance has chosen PCI-Pal now. Unclear if that is a displacement or just for new clients.
In the US their partners are NICE (old school legacy contact centre software company), Intrado and Ribbon. I have never heard of the last two.
PCI-Pal meanwhile has all the fast growing UCAAS players, Five9, Genesys, 8x8, etc. Exciting times.
Podcast was interesting. Perhaps the new standards will be a catalyst for greater adoption of PCI tools or outsourcing the contract centre.
As a side note, I like that PCI-Pal is such a thought leader in this space. Doing a podcast with Verizon, sponsoring Genesys and Five9 events. Nothing from Sycurio or Eckoh.
Actually they have both reduced headcount over last six months (according to LinkedIn) vs PCI-Pal increasing 14%.
Also did a little digging on the new Sycurio CEO Nick Viney. He was CEO of Cyber1, a Swedish listed company. During his 14 months there the shares fell approx 75%. What a stud.
I noticed something else interesting from the shareholder register. Steve Perring owns about 2.8% of the company. He actually worked at Teleperformance for 13 years and is now a director at a small call centre BPO. Clearly knows the space well.
What makes you say that NoCheddar?
Sycurio and Eckoh both bigger companies than PCIP, so in theory should have more resources to throw at marketing.
I did notice that when you Google 'PCI compliance', only PCIP has bid on the key words. Funnily enough when you Google 'PCI Pal', Eckoh and Sycurio have both bid on that, whereas PCI-Pal hasn't bid on theirs and they haven't bid on each others. Probably says something about who is getting searched more often!
A funny link that is probably nothing more than just interesting.
The largest shareholder of PCI-Pal is Gresham House, through two VCTs named Baronsmead.
These VCTs were acquired from Livingbridge in November 2018.
In June 2021, Livingbridge acquired Semafone. Shortly thereafter the lawsuit with PCI-Pal was announced.
Probably just an interesting coincidence, but does make you wonder if there's any link!
These large government contracts are really starting to add up. £1.6m per year for DWP, this one adds £0.9m. Those two alone are equal to 23% of current ARR. The DWP contract has already started so I assume that one is actually already being included in the £11m ARR figure.
Fantastic, great find!
I'm not overly familiar with government procurement practices, but presumably they don't sign up to an almost seven figure annual contract if they think it's going to be taken off the market!
Yes, so they burned through just £0.6m in the second half of the year. Should bode well, as I'm sure there is discretionary spend they could but if they needed to extend the runway - but no signs of that, unlike many American SAAS companies!